Why Draw a Landscape?: A Portfolio of Prints by Contemporary Artists August 20 to December 7, 2003 Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums On view at the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center through December 7, 2003, is Why Draw A Landscape?: A Portfolio of Prints by Contemporary Artists. This exhibition centers on a 1999 portfolio of prints commissioned by Crown Point Press in San Francisco on the theme of landscape in contemporary art. Eleven artists were asked to address the question, “Why draw a landscape?” Each artist responded with a print that attests to the relevance and vitality of the natural world. The artists include Jane Freilicher, David Nash, Ed Ruscha, and Pat Steir.
The portfolio will be on display with additional landscape prints selected from the museum’s permanent collection, ranging from a sixteenth-century woodcut by Hans Burgkmair (German, 1473-1531), to a 1647 etching by the Italian artist Stefano della Bella (1607-1677), to twentieth-century works by J. J. Lankes (American, 1884-1960) and Saul Steinberg (American, 1914-1999). The selection of prints expands on the ideas in the portfolio and illustrate how artists see their surrounding in their own context. A variety of printmaking processes have been chosen displaying the range and depth of the collection of the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center. Organized by the University of Richmond Museums, the exhibition was co-curated by N. Elizabeth Schlatter, Assistant Director, University Museums, and Christopher Oliver (RC’05), art history major at the University of Richmond and the 2003 Harnett Summer Fellow.